Crowdsourcing coming your way
I’ve just had a meeting with a business man from Asia, who is about to launch an online service that allows design project owners to crowdsource on even complicated design projects. Three months ago I had a similar meeting with a Dutch guy, also about to launch a crowdsourcing tool.
This momentum just confirms my belief that crowdsourcing is a key design tool of the future. Why? It allows thousands of brains to chip into the development process, making the creative process quicker and more expansive.
My bet it’s not a stand-alone solution. Creative processes require considerable and careful management. But with a little culture change and enough contributors and users on board, I do believe that crowdsourcing is a key way forward for creative development.
Call it the democratisation of design – even non-designers can point and click their way to ingenious solutions with a crowdsourcing tool. Time to retire, I guess.
Even Obama is crowdsourcing. We all know how he employed the power of the Internet to gather supporters – and their donations. He’s taken crowdsourcing and crowdfunding to the White House. This multi-media approach is nothing less than a 2.0 route towards a participatory democracy.
Date: February 18th, 2009 at 16:16 Name: Eva Corell LanglandscrowdSPRING is a very good example of a well thought out business concept. Every firm – small and big, can post a project and get creative solutions and design ideas from people all over the world. You can choose what ever reward you want, but naturally the higher reward, the higher chance for more creative contributions. At this moment there are nearly 15.000 creatives connected! http://www.crowdspring.com/
Date: February 19th, 2009 at 16:01 Name: Christine DissingCrowdspring is absolutely interesting but is basically not crowdsourcing, but more a graphic design competition central? (The idea of awards is super cool). The democratisation of design via crowdsourcing takes a different approach, more in the terretory of open source – one that involves contributors in the process – not just to deliver solutions, but to join into a stream or community build around a certain development of maybe more complex solutions than a logo. A hand set, cummunication platform or the like.
Date: February 20th, 2009 at 13:11 Name: David Fellah